Branded entertainment is a prevalent form of communication in the United States. Currently, branded entertainment distributed on the Internet is free from restrictions. What makes this entry distinctive is that the content came in the form of an immersive, interactive video game, which was prescribed by real events happening in popular culture every week, challenging the traditional fashion of creating and delivering branded messages in order to remain relevant with an easily bored audience. Every week, a new entertaining video game level was created from scratch. This helped us make people part of the experience of helping our hero, Dikembe Mutombo, save the world from the lethal Mayan prophesy.

The nature of our idea demanded that we make the content as accessible as possible so our audience could find it organically in the places where they were most receptive to play the game. We partnered with the most relevant sports, gaming and entertainment sites, using a mix of tactics that ranged from playable banners, game embeds hosted as content, social media and even search strategy to capture all the high interest around the game and Dikembe.

In an age where capturing the attention of young guys becomes harder by the day, Old Spice is always looking for ways to remain relevant and keep guys entertained. That’s why we used the Mayan apocalypse, on December 21, 2012, to create an 8-bit video game featuring the best defender of all time, NBA legend Dikembe Mutombo, to stop such prophecy from happening. With Dikembe’s help, Old Spice fans engaged in a 4½ week battle against numerous evil forces in an attempt to save the world from ruin.

Were we successful? Well, we’re all still here so it seems we accomplished our mission.

WORLD SAVED.

In addition, we had some other amazing successes:

Total game starts: 6mm+

Total unique players: 1.6mm+

Avg time spent playing: 8:07

Total time spent playing: 17.9 years

Total shares from the game: 797,554

Paid media impressions: 227.5mm

Earned impressions: 350mm+